Everyone has heard the phrase “you can only manage what you can measure.” Numbers, metrics and statistics are useful and important in every business. The key is to make sure that the ‘what‘, ‘how‘ and, most importantly, ‘why‘ of your measurements and related methods makes sense.
Cash Flow – a subject close to everyone’s heart….
Monday’s Wall Street Journal (9/24/07) has an article in the ‘Small Business Link’ (B4) titled
“Three Approaches to Reining in Customer Debt.” by Simona Covel. The three approaches discussed include:
Avoid steering like a drunken sailor… A metaphor for running a business
When I was a young boy, my dad used to take our family to a small reservoir in California, called Lake Woollomes, to go sailing. We had an old 17 foot home-made (not by us) sailboat made of steel. Definitely not the lightest hull on the water…
The Power of Congruence
I recently had the opportunity to give a presentation to a group of business owners on “Simple, Effective (though not always easy) Guidelines for Building and Running Your Business Successfully” (an embarrassingly long title). This high-level overview of key concepts ranged from strategy and marketing to operations, technology and finance.
One of the points I made was the importance of having an established, positive brand image – and the power and value of ‘congruence’ of that brand image in all aspects of your business. I use the word congruence because I like it – and because I could not find it on any list of “annoying business buzz-words or phrases.”
What congruence really comes down to is:
It’s always nice to be complimented by another…
I thought I’d share this article profiling me and my consulting practice in Darcey Howard’s recent ‘LifeStyled’ newsletter. I had the pleasure of working with Darcey last year. It was a great ‘education’ in personal branding (and it was a lot of fun).
Thank you Darcey!
The Right Stuff
I just took a moment to Google my name. Not a typical Saturday afternoon pursuit, but it’s a very wet, rainy day here in Seattle… There I am (www.fredjanssen.com) in the number 2 and number 3 spots out of more than 1.1 million results (and my site has only been live since April)! I wanted to bring attention to this for two reasons:
First, use what you already have…
Today’s Wall Street Journal (WSJ 06/08/07) has a front page article about Bill Gate’s speech at Harvard where he was accepting an honorary degree. It has been interesting and amazing to watch Bill Gates grow and change over the years. Actually, he and I have a number of things in common (OK only two – but that is “a number”): 1) we are the same age and 2) he lives in my neighborhood (assuming you consider a 15 mile radius a ‘neighborhood’).
In his speech, as reported by the WSJ, he provided his “four-point plan for attacking a complex problem.”
Mononegotiatis – The art of negotiating against yourself…
Have you ever said to yourself:
“We can’t go in with that price, it’s too high”
“I can’t charge that large of a fee”
“They’ll slam the door if I put that number in front of them”
If so, you have experienced what I will call
mononegotiatis [mon-oh-ni-goh-shee-eyt-is]: The art of negotiating against yourself on behalf of another (i.e. a prospective client) to the detriment of your bottom line.
Easy and Painless
I often provide my clients with a “Top X” list of recommendations for Excellence. Typically, one of my recommendations will be how to “Make it easy and painless for your customers to do business with you”. Many companies provide great products and services, but have systems, processes or people that make it difficult and frustrating for their customers to do business with them. We have all experienced companies like this.
Then there are those companies that just “get it” – and get it right. I have recently experienced a great example of just such a company. The Complete Line is a family owned business here in the Seattle area that sells office furniture, equipment and supplies to companies large and small (they have been in business for over 30 years). They made a happy and loyal customer out of me by making it easy and painless to do business with them.
They…
More on Keeping Customers Happy and Loyal…
Brian Keith asked some follow up questions on my last post :
How much communication is too much?
What about delivering bad news in email vs. phone?
How do you hold staff accountable for high customer service levels?
and so I thought I would share my responses…